Mine Storm 2
Mine Storm is the built-in game that came with every Vectrex unit. It was also released in a 3-D version that required the use of the Vectrex 3D Imager and Mine Storm 2 is a debugged version of Mine Storm. One of the built-in versions of Mine Storm had a glitch that made the game crash at level 13, so GCE decided to send a copy of Mine Storm 2 to gamers that wrote to the company and complained. This game is rare, because most of the gamers didn't know about the offer, and also because not many gamers got to level 13. Gameplay Gameplay is similar to the arcade game Asteroids. The player moves around the screen shooting at star-shaped Mines of various sizes that have various mannerisms. All the dots on a screen can potentially turn into Mines; once a Mine is shot, two dots on the screen will turn into medium-sized Mines, which will then turn into two small Mines when shot (note: for the most part; sometimes, perhaps due to a glitch, a medium-sized Mine will just hatch one small Mine). When all dots have been turned into Mines on a screen, the Minelayer will come out, laying Mines in its wake until the player destroys it. Making contact with anything will destroy the player's ship and the game will end once there are no more reserve ships left. The Escape function acts as Hyperspace, which moves the player's ship to a random area on the screen. Controls Main menu *Choose from one to two players--button one *Start game--button four In-game *Move ship left and right--joystick or D-pad left and right *Escape--button two *Thrust--button three *Fire rockets--button four Notes *There are several versions of the original Mine Storm; the original would crash at level 13. The second version allows a player to make it past this level, although the game behaves strangely, as there is a brief cinematic bit at the end of every level where the player's ship is sucked up from whatever area of the screen it is at to the middle while stars seemingly project from it (perhaps it is hitting warp to jump to the next level). If the player stays as close to the center as possible at the end of every level after 13, they will continue to advance; however, there are many times when a level skips several numbers for some reason, and pressing a button on their controller after they shoot the last Mine or piece of space dust could cause the game to end and take the player to the menu screen. This version ends on level 89, as there are several extra dots on this screen that will never hatch into Mines. There is also something that looks like a fireball that will not turn into smaller fireballs when shot. The player is either stuck here forever if they shoot all the Mines and space dust or they can sacrifice whatever remaining ships they have by running into Mines or space dust particles to end their game. *Presumably the third version of Mine Storm is for the later Vectrexes that were released overseas, having a bit of code cleanup. Mine Storm 2 appears to be the same as this overseas version, as Magnetic Mines appear on Mine Field 2, rather than Fireball Mines (along with other changes in which Mines appear on certain Mine Fields) like on the previous U. S. versions. Arguably this version is easier, due to a difference in setups with various Mine Fields (having only one Fireball Mine on Mine Field 9, for instance), extra ships are awarded at different times (like once level 14 is completed), and space dust and alien forces seem to have been omitted (as this was tested through level 51 and only regular Mines appeared). There are also many additional levels, due to levels not skipping like on the second U. S. version (there is no Mine Field 14 on the earlier U. S. versions, unlike on this cartridge, for example). This article uses material from the Mine Storm and Mine Storm III articles and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License. Category:Shooter Category:Simulation Category:Vectrex games